1973

Polywater’s Remaining Exit

“The prolonged-standing controversy over the existence of a superdense, polymeric variety of water is seemingly around. The argument started when Boris V. Derjaguin and colleagues at the Soviet Academy of Sciences observed that certain samples condensed in fantastic capillary tubes represented a new, steady type of h2o with a density pretty much one and a 50 % periods that of normal h2o and a molecular structure that could only be explained as polymeric. Subsequent investigations in the U.S.S.R., Britain, Germany and the U.S. argued that the anomalous properties could be described by impurities. Derjaguin has now noted that the latest measurements by his group have discovered that their samples invariably consist of trace impurities.”

Drunk Intestines

“Alcohol is produced in the human intestine by microorganisms. The volume of pure ethyl liquor (the potable type) made every day is about 1 ounce. Ethyl alcoholic beverages ingested by a human, or produced in the intestine, is carried to the liver. In the liver 80 % is broken down by alcohol dehydrogenase the remaining 20 % is possibly metabolized by one more enzyme, catalase. It is the efficiency of the procedure that so extended masked the production of alcohol in the intestine. The microorganisms that create it stay mysterious.”

Folks with automobile-brewery syndrome make a lot a lot more liquor everyday and may perhaps seem to be intoxicated even however they have not been drinking.

The Jesus Lizard

“The basilisk lizard of Mexico and Central The usa has a special ability: it can stroll on water. In some areas this means has gained it the name lagarto Jesus Cristo—the Jesus Christ lizard. Joshua Laerm of the College of Illinois photographed the animals with a substantial-speed digital camera. As the basilisk picks up pace, it twists the lessen fifty percent of its system from a person facet to the other and thrusts each and every leg backward and to the side. The final result is a quick waddle, essential to drive alone ahead with most force and retract every leg from the h2o with a bare minimum of resistance.”

1923

Sixteen Ohms of Malaria

“‘You have sixteen ohms of malaria,’ exclaimed the person at the rheostat, to a member of the Scientific American team who has been investigating the a lot-disputed Digital Reactions of Abrams, a system of diagnosis and cure developed by Dr. Albert Abrams of San Francisco. There are Period practitioners in the course of the nation. Impressive cures are mentioned to be effected, including instances of most cancers. But there are quite a few doubters in and out of clinical circles. The community, hunting on, stays in a quandary.”

Era was a large healthcare hoax. It held that disorders have a distinctive vibration fee that could be sensed from a drop of blood, or a handwriting sample, and dealt with, all with Abrams’s sealed electronic packing containers.

1873

Superhuman Bugs

“M. l’Abbe Plessis, in an article in Les Mondes, states that he positioned a massive horned beetle, weighing some fifty grains, on a sleek plank, then included weights up to 2.2 lbs .. In spite of this getting 315 occasions the beetle’s excess weight, the beetle managed to elevate it and go it together. A human is fully a hundred instances feebler in proportion. Similarly, the flea, scarcely .03 of an inch in peak, manages to leap above a barrier 500 instances its individual altitude. Picture a human jumping 3,000 feet in the air!”

Speedy Pigeons

“Carrier pigeons are becoming totally examined, and some have shown a amazing speed. The Ariel, a pigeon that won the $2,000 prize in the international contest in Belgium in 1871, achieved the distance amongst New York and Stratford, Conn., sixty-4 miles, in 30 minutes. Yet another chicken, known as No. 6, made the journey in practically as fast a time. The provider pigeon would seem to possess a memory for destinations, coupled with a really sturdy attachment for its abode.”